THE JPEG FILE (MERELY CROPPED-- NO OTHER WORKUP)

THE RAW FILE AS I RENDERED IT (CROPPED, BUT NO OTHER WORKUP)

Photo enthusiasts have been talking about "shooting raw" for quite a while, but most news photographers don't actually use it. I've been shooting most of my assignments in "raw + jpeg" mode lately, except when shooting sports.

Here's an example of where the raw file rescued a shot that would otherwise be unusable.

I went to Longmire to shoot photos on the story of the hikers who were stranded on the Muir snowfield, killing one. When I got there I discovered that there was nothing to shoot-- the three hikers and their rescuers were still up at Camp Muir, and the rescue helicopter wasn't due soon.

So, since I was already there, I decided that I ought to shoot a less newsy photo depicting the unseasonable snow. I wandered around Longmire, shooting what little I could, mostly animals foraging. It was an overcast day with flat and consistent light. I chose to shoot in manual exposure mode because I didn't want the exposures to change as my frames varied from bright scenes with almost all snow, to darker scenes of mostly animal and plants.

But soon the overcast brightened and I didn't notice the change. My best frame (above) was cooked-- the grass almost disappearing in the snow's overexposure. On the camera back where only the jpeg file is displayed the shot looked unusable.

The main virtue of shooting raw is that it gives you more highlight detail, so I knew that the raw file would be better, but I couldn't know how much better.

Back in the car, when I rendered the raw file on my laptop, I made sure to keep all of the highlight detail, and as you can see above, there was just enough of it.

And a funny thing about raw files, the very tip-top of their highlights are black and white. Yes, I said that correctly, they're colorless, and I don't know why. But it just so happens that in this photo the highlights are of snow, so having no hue looks natural.

So the picture was saved.

Not that it was needed-- the next day's paper didn't have space for it.